A short story by Jack Mint
He was a little nervous being called into the boss’s office. The sound of closing that door into her realm always sounded louder than all other doors. He smoothed the tie on his chest while she sorted through papers on her desk. Finally, she looked up. He leaned back when she leaned forward with her intrusive, almost offensive nose. The boss’s bright blue eyes, however, were inviting and earnest in merriment. Her smile was something of both.
“Your work was very impressive when you first arrived. Imaginative, ingenious, though a little on the reckless side,” she said.
“But your performance numbers have dropped recently, and your supervisor has told me you called in sick several days in a row. Is something going on?”
She already knew he hadn’t been ill with food poisoning. But HR wanted these things handled delicately. He shifted in his seat and figured there wasn’t anything to hide anymore. He might as well come out and say what was on his mind about this new job he’d been learning about.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I just had a little bit of indigestion.”
She held up a paper, “You were a practicing Taoist before this life. I wasn’t the one that hired you but I know most certainly you wouldn’t be in this department if you had been honest in your application.”
She smacked the paper down on the desk. HR was going to be displeased if they heard about this, but she had a department of angels to run. Not wasting time squashing the existential crisis of some millennial from the first millennium.
“Your beliefs before led you close to what the universe consisted of but we keep reality running.” She did not let up on him. “Indeed, the universe never does anything to itself that will hinder it, or destroy it. All things happen for a reason in the holy name of truth, and some thinkers like Carl Jung and Qui Chuji came close to identifying the truth behind the veil we work behind. But let me tell you something, young man, and it will behoove you to listen.
“Bureaucracy will also never do anything to put itself out of use. Like the universe, we do not solve the problem we created were for. That is why the bureaucracy is the quintessence of time, space, and reality. The shades of horror and joy we perpetuate in the land of the living must be an on-going game of give and take. You may have lived as a Taoist, but after your death you are now a bureaucrat.”
His boss slid the paper across the desk written in crimson ink.
“This is a contract that will limit the scope of your ethereal influence unless under direct supervision. Sign here, please.”
In his heart that loved peace and justice, he stiffened and asked, “What if I refuse?”
She smiled and said, “I wasn’t asking.”
